Flushing Draws a Crowd, But Where Will They Park?April 8, 2005 by Gary Pang
Once a week, William Eng drives two hours from upstate New York, parks his car in the public parking lot in downtown Flushing, and eats dim sum with his brother. But that routine could soon become more difficult for the Kingston resident. The parking lot may close, leaving Eng with the nearly impossible task of finding a spot to park on Flushing’s streets.
“I don’t believe this,” said an incredulous Eng in Cantonese. “There’s no other place to park.”
Flushing already suffers from a serious lack of parking, a curse of its own success. Businesses are booming, bringing more people and more cars to the area and making land in the area more valuable – too valuable for parking lots.
“It used to be very easy to park,” said Peter Koo, president of the Flushing Chinese Business Association. “But many people work around here; they come and drop in quarters every hour or two because it’s very hard to find parking here.”
The area is well served by public transportation, but with 24 bus routes running through downtown, many streets are off-limits to parkers. Commuters who drive to Flushing, park, and then take either the Long Island Railroad or the No. 7 subway into Manhattan add more cars to the area. Of the 1,101 spots in the lot where Eng parks, 451 have 12-hour limits designed for these commuters.
All of these spots may soon disappear because the lot – Municipal Lot One -- is the biggest and most attractive piece of city-owned undeveloped land in Flushing. Its value is estimated at between $80 million and $100 million.
Last month, the Economic Development Corporation picked three builders as finalists from thirteen bidding for the lot. While the agency is not discussing the plans’ specifics, it says all three include building a movie theater, shops, restaurants, and one acre of landscaped public space on the lot. Some different ideas include hundreds of housing units, a hotel, and cultural and recreational centers. The Economic Development Corporation said the city is also working with a neighboring church to build affordable housing on half an acre of the lot.
All three builders said they would eventually add more parking than is currently available at affordable rates. According to Marilyn Bitterman, district manager of Community Board 7, the parking will be built underground.
But the immediate concern is where people will park during construction; the Economic Development Corporation does not say what its plans are. One solution is to have temporary parking on weekdays at Shea Stadium.
“They have to work out the logistics,” said Koo.
But the story of Lot One is illustrative of one complication in Flushing’s long-term development. The more it builds, the more parking it needs, but the more space it develops, the less space it has for parking. A block away from the lot, a 12-story retail and office building is being built. A few blocks away, the former RKO Keith’s Theater, vacant for years, will be rebuilt as a 19-story commercial and residential complex with a senior center. At the Flushing waterfront, 14 acres of land are being developed for a retail and residential complex.
“Flushing will be very different in the next 10 years,” said Bitterman.
While local interests see this as positive, they are also aware that it may create long-term parking problems. “Affordable parking is critical to local businesses,” said Koo. “[But] if we plan ahead, then it would work.”

Voting Problems for Asian-Americans In FlushingNovember 5, 2004 By Gary Pang
On November 2, the largely Asian neighborhood of Flushing made history when it helped elect Jimmy Meng as New York’s first Asian American state legislator. (See related article) However, the process of voting on Election Day did not go smoothly for many Asian-American voters at area poll sites.
Missing or mismatched names on the election rolls was the most common problem that Asian voters encountered, said Veronica Jung, executive director for the Korean American League of Civic Action.
“A family of five who voted [at Flushing High School] for six years were told that their names were not on the roster,” said Jung. “They were told to go to another site, but then poll workers there said they were at the wrong site.” Because of the delay, four of the family members ended up not voting.
In past elections, poll workers sometimes did not tell voters not found on voting rolls that they could vote by paper ballot. This year, Jung said, poll workers seemed to be too quick to voters to use affidavit ballots, instead of checking the roster more carefully.
“Some Korean voters left because they wanted to use the machines,” she said. “They thought that otherwise their votes would not count.”
Other voters went to their poll sites, but left without voting because they could not find interpreters to help them. At P.S. 20 and J.H. 189, there were fewer Korean interpreters than the number mandated by the Board of Elections, according to the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Around 11 a.m., two to three of P.S. 20’s voting machines broke down and were not repaired for 45 minutes. As a result some people thought their votes did not get counted.
“An old man tried to vote, but he got to pick his presidential candidate only,” said William Fan, who voted at P.S. 20. “His machine’s lever got stuck, and three people were standing behind him.” The man wanted to finish casting his vote in other races, said Fan, but he was rushed out.
When 26-year-old Clara Wong tried to vote at P.S. 20, two poll workers argued over whether she was allowed to vote because she had not declared a political party, and had to consult voting rules to resolve the issue. Voters do not have to register with a party to vote in the General Election. “They said I was ‘challenged,’” said Wong.
Henry Tan, who was monitoring the voting for a civil rights group but has also worked as a poll worker in the past, said poor training was partly to blame.
At the Rosenthal Senior Center in Flushing, a poll worker allegedly made racist remarks to Korean voters and acted hostile toward voters who had trouble speaking English. “They need to be disciplined,” said Margaret Fung of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund.
But Tan added that inexperienced voters and some who claim they registered when they did not make the two Flushing polling sites challenging places to work.
“It becomes very tiresome, and that’s why many inspectors don’t want to work at P.S. 20 and J.H. 189,” he said.

First Chinese-American Elected to LegislatureNovember 5, 2004 By Han Ou
When he takes office in January, Jimmy Meng will become the first Asian-American member of the New York State Legislature. On Election Day, the Democrat from Flushing won almost three-quarters of the vote in the 22nd Assembly district in Flushing, Queens.
"The impact of my victory is a big, big encouragement for all the Asian Americans in the country," Meng said at his victory celebration.
Meng defeated incumbent Barry Grodenchik, who was running on the Working Families Party line, as well as two other Asian-Americans, Republican Meilin Tan and Green Party candidate Evergreen Chou.
Some Asian-Americans see Meng’s election as a sign that things are changing for Asians in the U.S. "Chinese-Americans used to suffer a lot from roaring racial discrimination in this country," said Yucai Yang, a businessman who lives both in Flushing and Shanghai and who flew in from Shanghai on Election Day to vote for Meng. "The social climate now is much, much better. With Meng's election to the State Assembly, this community is going to open up more to the mainstream American society."
It may be an ironic comment on how complicated Queens politics is that one person who was not one of Meng's supporters is the first Asian-American in the New York City Council, John Liu. Liu endorsed Grodenchik, who is Jewish, and he criticized Meng for campaigning on ethnic appeal rather than the issues.
"Jimmy's campaign definitely succeeded in mobilizing new Asian voters," Liu said. "I think part of the campaign result is decided by its objective. While the objective of Jimmy's campaign was turning out new voters, Grodenchik's campaign focused more on the issues."
"John thinks that I got most of my support from my own community," Meng said, "but I got support from whites, blacks, Koreans, Chinese and the Jewish community. We had a very good multi-ethnic campaign team. The only reason we won the election was because of the old-fashioned hard work."
"My husband lost 11 pounds of weight during the process," said Meng's wife, Xiaomin Wang, who said she was happy with the result.
Business and Community Leader
Meng, now 60, has lived in Flushing with his wife and three children for more than 25 years. He was born in Shandong province in China and lived mostly in Taiwan before he came to the United States as a graduate student of English in 1975.
He became the owner of the Chung Hwa Book Co. and the Queens Lumber Company, both in downtown Flushing. "He works on most weekends," said Edward Chang, a longtime lumber company employee.
"He often bought a bagel for dinner if he had to work extra hours for the day."
Selected as the chairman of the Flushing Business Association, he initiated a sanitation drive, known as the "R40 plan," in an effort to get rid of the stinking trash often piled in front of the storefronts, especially busy restaurants, in downtown Flushing. The effort led eventually to the creation of downtown Flushing's Business Improvement District. Meng also helped raise $250,000 in relief funds for the families of police officers and firefighters who died in the Sept.11 terrorist attacks.
"Meng is a firefighter for this neighborhood," said Connie Chang, who is Meng's secretary at the nonprofit business association. "He would do whatever he can to help people solve their problems."
Insurgent Candidacy
When, after the 2000 Census, the 22nd Assembly district was redrawn -- it now lies east of the Van Wyck Expressway, from the Long Island Expressway to several blocks north of Northern Boulevard - it encompassed enough of the Asian-American community to make a run more attractive to Asian-American candidates.
In the state Democratic primary in September, Meng ran an insurgent campaign against the incumbent, Assemblyman Barry Grodenchik, who had the support of the Queens Democratic organization. In that race, Meng won 2,877 votes, or 51 percent, to Grodenchik's 2,311 votes, or 41 percent. A third candidate, Benjamin Singer, received 425 votes, or 8 percent.
A week later, Grodenchik's campaign staff accused Meng of bringing out "ghost voters" to support him during the election. They submitted to the city Board of Elections for further scrutiny a list of 191 voters, who they said had registered with problematic or even nonexistent home addresses; the board disqualified those voters. Indeed, ten people on the list had provided their home addresses as 135-29 Roosevelt Ave., which is the address of the Chung Hwa Book Co., a commercial building owned by Meng and used as his campaign headquarters.
"The incident has nothing to do with me," Meng said, adding that those 10 people were registered in 1997 and did not vote this September. He said he was not directly involved in the voter-registration work.
What Now?
Meng says he will now focus on the issues facing the neighborhood, including the traffic congestion in downtown Flushing. Meng said the best solution was to expand the business district to 32nd Street and Northern Boulevard in the east and to College Point in the north. "It's a large light-industry district, which should be turned into a prosperous economic hub," he said.
He would also like to address the concerns of the undocumented immigrants in the community. "As long as they obey laws, the legislature should facilitate the procedure of granting them legal identity status," he said. "The government should not take security as an excuse to discriminate against the immigrants."
Also on his to-do list:
- helping to increase the state’s minimum wage;
- setting up information desks at senior centers;
- providing better social services;
- and improving bilingual education and increasing funding for the schools to provide smaller classrooms with additional supplies.
For his part, Councilmember Liu says he is willing to forget the past. "I look forward to working closely with Jimmy," Liu said. "I'll try very, very hard to succeed working with him. It's not about me. It's not about him. It's about our community looking good or bad."
Meng also expressed his strong willingness to cooperate with Liu, saying he would work with Liu "100 percent to make this a better community for everyone."
Related: Voting Problems for Asian-Americans In Flushing

Bowne Street Community Church: Adapting To The TimesDecember 11, 2003 By Sophia Chang
From the outside, Bowne Street Community Church, a tidy, red-brick church flanked by evergreen trees and shrubs near downtown Flushing, seems to have successfully adapted to changes in the neighborhood it serves. The marquee proclaims the church "A Diverse Fellowship For A Diverse Community," and Sunday services for its multinational congregation are offered in English at 10 a.m. and in Taiwanese at 11:30 a.m.
But some changes have posed a more difficult challenge. Like many other churches, Bowne must contend with declining membership, a lack of funds, and an aging building.
And so some church officials were delighted last year when a developer, the Clarett Group, wanted to buy the church's land. Clarett would have demolished the church building, erected in 1892, to make way for a 20-story residential tower. As part of the arrangement, the company offered to build a new, smaller church - free of charge.
The plan quickly encountered opposition from neighborhood residents, who collected over 2,000 signatures on petitions, as well as from some parishioners. Local preservation groups, fearing that yet another piece of the old Flushing would be lost, began a campaign to have the city designate the church as a landmark.
Today, more than a year later, the plan for the tower seems dead, but the push to protect the building continues. The issue is currently awaiting a hearing by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which will then rule on the matter.
James Driscoll, vice president for history at the Queens Historical Society, said his group worries that the church leaders might want to revive plans for a high rise. The society also opposes an alternate plan to build on the parking lot adjacent to the church.
"The society feels that the entire property should be landmarked," Driscoll said. "That wouldn't prevent construction on the parking lot, but it would give the landmarks commission some control over what would be built, just to make sure it wouldn't overwhelm the entire church."
The church boasts an illustrious history, dating back to the earliest fights over religious freedom in America. According to church literature, in the 1600s Peter Stuyvesant jailed John Bowne for "harboring Quakers" and for hosting Quaker meetings at his home, which still stands on Bowne Street.
But preservationists and other supporters of the landmark proposal prize the church's building as well as its historical significance. Its signature stained glass windows came from the studios of Louis Tiffany. Although only one is officially signed as a Tiffany, three others were the work of a parishioner, Agnes Northop, a designer with the famed studio. The Clarett Group planned to incorporate the windows into the new building, but Driscoll said the works might not look the same in a smaller, more modern setting.
While opponents of the landmark proposal appreciate the windows and the church's significance, they say that maintaining a building is not a congregation's primary focus. Making the building a landmark, they believe, may even violate the separation between church and state.
Landmark status "imposes a burden on smaller churches like ours," said L.D. Clepper, a member of the church's governing board. Clepper added that before the Landmarks Preservation Commission stepped in, Bowne Street had been planning to expand its community programs with the addition of a child care center, an elderly care facility, and a soup kitchen. But those program have been canceled, pending a decision by the city. Church members have split over the issue.
The area surrounding the church has changed dramatically over the past few decades, with an increase in population and development. The church, on the corner of Bowne and Roosevelt Avenue a few blocks away from the bustling downtown district, is already surrounded by residential complexes.
The vibrant neighborhood's shifting demographics are readily apparent in storefront signs, which alternate between Chinese, Korean and English. Bowne Street has changed with the neighborhood, offering Chinese-language services and programs, and merging with a Taiwanese church in 1988.
All this makes it "a model for other congregations that are facing crises of membership, in that it's adapted to changes in its community," said Ann Friedman, director of the New York Landmarks Conservancy's program which helps preserve religious institutions.
Churches are particularly vulnerable to development battles, Friedman said, because their property is frequently less developed than much of the surrounding area. Landmark designation often becomes a tool in such disputes.
"In some cases, people try to landmark just because there's been too much development," Driscoll said.
Clepper says the controversy over Bowne Community may well be an example of that. "In an area like Flushing there seems to be a lot of opposition to high rise buildings," he said. "When the church was being built in 1892, none of the apartment buildings were here. Progress happens, and it's hard to argue against it taking place."
Also In This Series:
West-Park Presbyterian: Neighbors Come To The Rescue
(Upper West Side, Dist. 6)
Shearith Israel: Preserving The Past Or Shaping The Future?
(Central Park West, Dist. 6)
St.Thomas The Apostle: End Of An Era
(Harlem, Dist. 9)
Religion and Historic Preservation
(Overview)

Business Improvement District EstablishedOctober 3, 2003 The City Council has approved the creation of a Business Improvement District in Flushing. As a result, local merchants will pay a special tax to fund sanitation projects. The establishment of the district is part of a larger neighborhood improvement effort by Flushing leaders. Other possible projects include a new stadium in Willet's Point and a cleanup of the Flushing River.

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